1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a missile launching system which may be employed in a widebody commercial aircraft, and more particularly to a missile launcher system which provides the capability of launching a plurality of tube launched missiles from the sides of the aircraft.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore, a variety of missile launching systems have been devised for use in military and commercial aircraft. Prior missile launching systems have included methods for deploying missiles from the tail section of the aircraft, or through a launching arrangement which ejects the missiles from the front of the aircraft by means of a gas ejection system. Other systems have included vertical and/or horizontal racks which deploy missiles from bomb bay areas or from the sides of the aircraft by extending the racks and missiles outside the aircraft for launching. Rotary rack arrangements have been designed for deploying missiles and rockets along with conventional wing-mounted launchers employed in military aircraft.
Some prior launcher designs have employed rotary racks which store the missiles and which are transferred to a set of parallel tracks which allow ejection of the missile from the front or side of the aircraft. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,208,949 of Boilsen, a plurality of cruise missiles are carried for launching from a converted widebody aircraft. The missiles are individually mounted in a "carousel" arrangement of rotary racks, each rack in turn being moved to a special launch door opening in the aft side of the fuselage and activated to eject missiles individually through the opening in an outward and downward direction through the downwash from the wing to avoid the empennage surfaces of the aircraft.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,040,334 of Smethers, Jr., shows a forwardly launched missile system which also incorporates a rotary rack to store the missiles. Smethers, Jr. incorporates a huge revolver mechanism for ICBMs with the "barrel" of the revolver constituting a single launch tube which extends internally of the aircraft and terminates at an opening in the nose which is closed in normal flight operation by a clam shell door arrangement.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,803,168 of Robert et al and 2,845,004 of Johnson disclose vertical and horizontal rack launcher systems. U.S. Pat. No. 2,826,120 of Lang et al describes a rotary rack arrangement while U.S. Pat. No. 3,534,653 of Specht et al shows a launch tube arrangement allowing missile launch in a plurality of directions.
While these patents describe a variety of systems for launching missiles or bombs from aircraft, no missile system is known in the prior art which may readily mounted in a standard widebody commercial aircraft without major structural or permanent modification to the aircraft.